his local cal campaign office and te president told volunteers they're making me do my hom homework. >> bret: ed henry with the president in las vegas. thanks. stocks were mixed today. dow gained 78. s&p 500 finished ahead four. nasdaq fell 3. bring in senior political analyst brit hume from washington with analysis of what the president has been saying on the campaign trail about the economy. good evening. >> hi there, bret. a central premise of the obama campaign is he inherited an economy in freefall. pulled it back from the brink and set it on the right path. but consider this. the economy fell in to recession more than a year before mr. obama took office. by the time he was inaugurated the worst of it was over. the economy was still shrinking but the steepest decline had occurred in the time quarter of 2008. it shrank less in first quarter of 2009. by june of 2009 it began to grow again, marking the official end of the recession. mind you this occurred before almost any of the massive stimulus spending mr. obama signed in to law had taken effect. yes, you might say in terms of